Honeycomb Hearts

Arts and Woodcrafts

               The woman's eyes went wide. "Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry!" She pulled the goggles off of her eyes and stepped out of the shed, "I had heard that was going to move in soon, so I wanted to finish what I was working on here as soon as I could. I'm Pyrrha. Pyrrha Nikos." She extended a hand that was long, slender, and ended in a rough, dusty glove. Yang took the hand and shook it firmly, surprised at how Pyrrha could match the firmness.

               "Yang. Yang Xiao Long. Yeah, my step-sister and I just moved in a week ago, had you not noticed? Not even the new strawberry bushes in front of the house?" Yang felt Ruby would be devastated if nobody noticed the new bushes.

               "I'm afraid the way I come here is from that way," Pyrrha pointed to the forest behind the house. A small path lined with wooden planks lead into the trees. "I don't have an opportunity to see the front of the house much. Once again, I'm sorry for disturbing you."

               "Nah, you didn't disturb me. To be honest I didn't even know you were back here. I thought woodworking was supposed to be noisy." Yang said, making motions with her hands. "You know, like chopping wood, sawing planks, sanding off... planks..."

               "Oh no I mostly do carving. The sawdust is from a project a few weeks ago, Ghira wanted me to repair a bridge for the town over a creek south of town. I decided it would be better to replace the whole thing." Pyrrha wiped her forehead. "I don't usually make such a mess."

               Yang scratched her chin. It definitely seemed that this girl felt really sorry for doing absolutely nothing wrong, and she wouldn't feel better anytime soon. "Tell ya what," Yang said, "How about we make a deal? If you help me make something simple that I need to get back in fit-fighting shape," Yang punched her fist into her mechanical hand, "You can use this shed all you want."

               Pyrrha's face lit up. "You really mean it? Oh, Jaune is going to be so happy!"

               "Jaune?"

               "Oh, Jaune is my fiancé. We always have fun little competitions to see who can make the other smile more, though often mine are just wooden decorations." Pyrrha sighed. "I really need some new ideas."

               "Well if you want, we can give you some strawberries once our bushes are bearing fruit. Those should make him happy!"

               "That would be splendid!"

               The two shook hands, and Yang told Pyrrha exactly what she wanted. She wanted a sort of chin-up bar, but with the bar not mounted firmly in one place. She called it a salmon ladder, where you could pull yourself up above the bar with such momentum that you could displace the bar and bring it higher or dislodge it to bring it lower while keeping yourself suspended. Before Yang knew it, Pyrrha had drawn a near-perfect diagram of the salmon ladder. She nodded, and the two began to work.

               Yang mostly just held stuff in place or measured off certain parts of wood while Pyrrha did all the precision work like drilling and sawing, but as the hours passed, Yang felt she was getting the hang of it. That was, until, she noticed that all they had been doing was cutting wood.

               "Is all of this wood really necessary for a simple salmon ladder?" She asked, steadying one final piece of wood for Pyrrha to saw.

               "To make it sturdy enough to use safely, yes. We need supports for the main frame of it, which is what this main L-shaped form will be, and then slanted supports for those to make sure it doesn't wobble too much." Pyrrha pointed at her drawing as she talked, and it was clear she could have been using much bigger words than she was.

               "You wanna get something to eat before we keep going? I'm starving." Yang said.

               "Sounds good to me. I actually brought along a few sandwiches, they should be in a backpack by the trail. Could you get me it?"

               Yang nodded and left towards the trail. The backpack was easy to see, being as bright red as Pyrrha's hair. She picked up the bag and the top opened up, allowing her a peek inside. Pyrrha wasn't looking, would she really mind if Yang peeked? She snooped around a bit, seeing the sandwich boxes, a purse, and a few other things. The one that caught her eye, however, was a small, wooden locket with a picture of Pyrrha next to a blonde-haired man inside of it.

               "That must be Jaune..." Yang thought, "He looks like a stiff breeze could knock him over."

               She placed the locket back in the bag and returned to Pyrrha. With the thought of food clouding her mind, she quickly scarfed down the PB&J as if it were the most gourmet lobster dish she'd ever eaten. She apologized, and Pyrrha laughed. Soon, the two got back to work. Yang held the wood in position and Pyrrha drilled holes where they needed to be, then they swapped spots, and Yang hammered in nails on X marks that Pyrrha had drawn. Before they knew it, the salmon ladder was up and, if Yang had to say, it looked damn-good. There was one problem though.

               "I just realized I don't have a bar for this." Yang said, her smile not wavering from her face. "Well shit."

               "I think I may have something at home from when Jaune had tried to start lifting weights. Needless to say it didn't go well, he still looks like a stiff breeze can knock him over." Pyrrha said, chuckling at the thought.

               "Knew it!" Yang mentally gave herself a high-five. "Well, I should probably tell Ruby about our new neighbor and friend. Seeya around, Pyrrha."

               "I'll be seeing you!" She replied, waving as she left for the trail back home.

               Yang waved back, then turned to look at the wooden monstrosity they'd made. It was near double her height and she somehow didn't notice until now, which looked much more intimidating than anything she'd used at a gym before.

               "Well, nothing Yang 2.0 can't handle."